Thursday, August 23, 2012

One Hit Wonder

Durham’s third batter of the night, Chris Gimenez batting as DH, hit a single to left field. That was it. He was the only Bull to get a hit for the entire night. For five innings the Tides’ Jake Arrieta pitched brilliantly until, with one out in the 6th, something went terribly wrong and he walked four batters in a row and let another in with a wild pitch. That was all of the scoring and that was enough. But you do have this weird statistical fluke on the record, a one-hit win.

In the meantime, Chris Archer had a simply outstanding evening, certainly the best I’ve seen him pitch since he came to Durham. Too bad that, if I’m guessing about the schedule correctly, we won’t have a chance to see him pitch again this season. At least we won’t be able to see him pitch in a Bulls uniform. He will undoubtedly be in a Rays uniform for at least September. And if they go into the playoffs?

Overall, a terrific pitching duel won and lost by the pitchers.

Note: Reliever Adam Liberatore had a nice evening. He and his colleague from Montgomery, Frank De Los Santos, have been pleasant additions to the team.

Outside the Game —

Chris Kudialis, writing in the News & Observer, and following the lead of WDBB, has a nice feature on Leslie Anderson.

Rays infielder Sean Rodriguez, who spent a couple of games with the Bulls back in 2009, will be back for a few days as part of some roster finagling on the part of the Rays. Trivia: he was part of the same deal that brought Alexander Torres to the Rays system.

Matt Mangini has caught on with the Mobile BayBears, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ AA team. The Diamondbacks’ AAA team, the Reno Aces, is likely to win their division in the PCL. Bit of a stretch, but if Matt can get called up to Reno and Reno wins the PCL, he could be back at the DBAP next month.

Matchup

The Tides have a remote chance to get into the playoffs as a wild card selection. They've had a very good year. Notable is how much back and forth they have had with their parent club.